Volume 9: The Days Can’t Be Lived Anymore
302
May the deceased rest in peace
Boss Huo patted his buttocks and stood up, saying gloomily: “With that tone of yours, I thought you were planning to send me away…”
Ren Yue gave the boss two big white eyes1.
The group of people went downstairs without a sound, returning to the fork in the road.
On the snowy ground were rows of messy footprints, and also two long bloodstains——they were left behind by those two heads.
A few steps further, a headless corpse lay prone in the snow. The break at the neck was a spray-shaped bloodstain, which was still steaming at this time, flowing gurglingly under the snow.
Da Xiongdi exclaimed, “This thing is truly fierce ah…”
Shang Zhou said: “In that case, things are developing in the direction we least want to see.”
The Boss bites the challengers to death, takes away their head-casings2 to become its own underlings, the head-casings bite off new head-casings, and thus the little brothers3 are endless for generations.
Ren Yue said: “If we are a little careful, there should be no problem.”
Boss Huo sighed again: “Let’s hope so ba4.”
Perhaps his prayer had an effect; on the road ahead, they actually did not encounter any more danger.
Judging from the bloodstains flowing from the two head-casings, the direction they left and the direction the women were advancing should be the same, but as the women continuously advanced, those bloodstains also became fainter and fainter, until at last they could no longer be seen, and between heaven and earth only a vast expanse of white remained.
As the sun sank in the west, the white turned to gray. The snow, which had stopped for a day, began to fall again, making the sky even more gloomy, oppressively dark and somewhat dangerous.
As they were walking, an ethereal singing voice suddenly came from somewhere unknown. The person humming did not sing any lyrics, nor was there a very fixed melody, but one could hear the lighthearted mood of the voice’s owner.
Why is she so happy? Is it because she harvested two head-casings?
Ren Yue couldn’t help but think.
The singing voice echoed between the tall buildings, awakening one bright light after another, as if the apocalypse had never come. As if after dark, people got off work and went home, turned on the lights in their houses, and performed scene after scene of the hundred states of human life5 as silhouettes on the windows.
But everyone present knew that days like that would never come again.
Ren Yue stopped and said, “We can’t go on, it’s gotten dark. We need to quickly find a place to hide.”
They did not lift their feet, but the “gazhi” sound in the snow never stopped.
Boss Huo’s expression changed, and he immediately nodded in agreement: “Let’s go quickly ba, we’ve walked all day and our shoes are about to freeze on.”
Da Xiongdi looked up and around, saying, “Where do we go ah?”
With them at the center, the buildings within a few meters had at least three lit rooms; in the most extreme case, an entire building was brightly lit.
Light is what best gives people a sense of security, but in this situation, a lit room was, on the contrary, even more dangerous.
“Find one with few.” Xiao Lou said.
So, the group walked towards the building with the fewest lights.
The brownish-red unit door6 emitted a moan|groan that spoke of its old age, the voice-activated light in the corridor lit up in response, and the group’s shadows were cast on the winding staircase, huddled together and overlapping.
101 was one of the three lit rooms in this unit. After entering, the one on the side closer to the unit door was 102; 101 was opposite it.
The door to 101 was open a slight crack. Warm yellow light peeked out from the crack, like a silent seduction.
Boss Huo held Huo Dongdong in front of him, using his other hand to gesture for him to be quiet. The five of them went upstairs soundlessly and tried pulling the doors on the second floor.
Neither of the two rooms on the second floor was locked, and neither had its lights on.
Considering it was too close to the first floor, Ren Yue had them wait downstairs while she climbed up another floor and tentatively tugged at the doors on the third floor.
The two units on the third floor were also unlocked. The voice-activated lights in the corridor, like on the second floor, did not turn on. They should be relatively safer.
The three lit units in this building were 101, 502, and 601.
In terms of distance, she was more inclined toward the third floor.
She returned to the second floor and pointed upstairs at the others who were blocking the corridor.
The group immediately understood, tiptoed up the stairs with her, and then entered room 302.
Compared to the place they stayed last night, 302 appeared much more bloody.
Ren Yue shone her flashlight, and the moment she stepped through the door, a “guji7” sound came from under her foot. At the same time, a drop of fresh blood grazed the tip of her nose and fell, silently melting into the dark red carpet on the floor.
She took a step back and first shone the light on the ceiling—there was a patch of bloodstains, seeping with blood from an unknown source. Then she shone it on the doormat at the entrance, which had the words “churu ping’an8” written on it. The carpet, saturated with blood, squeezed out blossoms of blood from within when external pressure was applied. It looked a bit disgusting, but surprisingly, there was no smell of blood.
She hesitated for a second, then turned and asked the others behind her, “Should we change to another one?”
Boss Huo peeked in and said, “Forget it, let’s not go. I can’t walk anymore.”
He could still accept this minor situation.
Since the boss had said so, Ren Yue naturally had no objections. The group all entered the room, treading on the “gujiguji” sounding carpet. Shang Zhou, who was bringing up the rear, shut the door.
To be fair, this time it was Da Xiongdi and Shang Zhou’s turn to tidy up the living room, while Ren Yue and Xiao Lou went to investigate the other rooms.
Whatever Xiao Lou was thinking, Ren Yue was, in any case, ancuocuo is secretly excited, very much looking forward to it. She walked in front of her, feeling like a brave warrior protecting a princess—although the princess seemed to be a better fighter than she was.
She was the first to push open a door. The bell behind it rang lightly twice. The flashlight shone in, revealing the tenderly pink decorations to them.
This was a little girl’s room. The inside was covered with tender pink wallpaper, a feather chandelier hung from the ceiling, and on the floor was a pure white circular carpet. On the carpet sat a pink, unicorn-shaped wooden horse, and scattered around the unicorn were various kinds of dolls.
Judging from the room’s decor alone, the owner of this household must have loved their daughter very much.
Ren Yue looked at the wallpaper, then at Xiao Lou’s hair.
The two things were actually the same color.
Xiao Lou rolled her eyes at her: “What are you looking at?”
Ren Yue blinked and withdrew her gaze.
She walked into the room and looked around.
The living room had a thick layer of dust, but this room had hardly any, which was clearly a problem.
She walked to the wardrobe and carefully opened the milky-white doors, brain-supplementing9 ten thousand scenarios of little ghosts jumping out to attack her. But regretfully, this did not happen. Inside the wardrobe hung a neat row of beautiful little dresses, so exquisite she was reluctant to touch them with her dirty hands.
She closed the wardrobe doors and turned to Xiao Lou, saying, “Nothing here.”
Xiao Lou nodded to acknowledge. The two of them left the room one after the other. Ren Yue closed the door with a backhand motion. In the second before the door shut, the unicorn in the room started to rock by itself, “gazhigazhi,” seeming somewhat creepy in the quiet night.
Ren Yue was startled and immediately pulled the door wide open again. The unicorn was still rocking, and several surrounding dolls stiffly stood up, stretched out their arms, and walked toward them, blinking their Carslan big eyes10.
Xiao Lou took out a dagger.
Ren Yue shut the door with a backhand motion, closing the little friend and her dolls all inside.
“Dong dong dong,” came several muffled thuds. The sound came entirely from a spot about ten-odd centimeters from the bottom of the door; the dolls must have reached the doorway.
The people in the living room heard the sound and looked over in unison. Ren Yue waved at them, then turned to the little girl inside the room and said, “Xiao meimei, we just want to stay for one night and will leave first thing tomorrow morning. Could you be a little friendlier to us?”
The bell behind the door rang impatiently; the mood of the little ghost inside the room seemed just as irritable.
Negotiation wasn’t working, so she immediately changed tactics: “If you don’t agree—then jiejie can only use violence to solve the problem. You might not know, living here, but our weapons can even hit ghosts. You’re so cute, it wouldn’t look good if you were beaten black and blue.”
The sound of the bell in the room paused, then gradually quieted down.
Ren Yue widened her eyes and looked at Xiao Lou, wagging her tail as she waited for praise.
Really like a little puppy, the kind whose tail could wag into a propeller.
For a moment, she really wanted to laugh, but she quickly remembered her own tall and cold persona. The slight curve that had just formed at the corners of her mouth immediately fell, and pretending not to see the expectation in her eyes, she turned and walked away.
Sometimes she would suddenly feel that this woman was quite cute, but she still hated her face and would absolutely not respond to her pursuit.
As for Ren Yue—she was already used to it, so she wasn’t very disappointed and pidiandian-ly11 followed Xiao Lou to the next room that needed to be explored.
Next to the little girl’s room was the master bedroom, where her parents lived. The master bedroom was very messy. Men’s and women’s clothes were piled all over the bed, and beside the bed were two open suitcases. The suitcases were packed with some winter clothes and valuable objects, left here halfway through packing. It was easy to imagine how this family had frantically fled for their lives when the apocalypse descended, and how they had died in haste.
The gold, silver, and jewels in the suitcases, which were once extremely precious, were now not even as valuable as a box of instant noodles. The apocalypse had brought too many changes to the world.
Ren Yue didn’t move the suitcases on the floor. She checked around the room but couldn’t find anything unusual. Then she pulled down two bedsheets, preparing to use her old trick of making a brazier for warmth.
She held a corner of the bedsheet and shook it twice. Flakes of dust immediately began to dance in the flashlight’s beam, instantly driving Xiao Lou out of the room in disgust.
Next, the two of them passed Da Xiongdi and Shang Zhou, who were diligently tidying up the living room, and Boss Huo and his son, who were lying corpses12 on the sofa, and pulled open the sliding door to the kitchen opposite.
The sliding door got stuck on something halfway. Ren Yue shone her flashlight around inside and immediately noticed the kitchen knife stuck in the cutting board, and a human head next to it.
！！！
She almost immediately called out for everyone to retreat, but Xiao Lou had already walked past her and gone inside. She walked straight to the head, then grabbed it by the hair and lifted it up.
A line of “fuck” scrolled through Ren Yue’s mind.
Xiao Lou said: “It’s not a human head, it’s a doll.”
Ren Yue: “??” What kind of doll was so realistic?
Xiao Lou parted the head’s hair, revealing the smooth puppet structure inside: “It should be a big-headed doll.”
Ren Yue: “……” Sorry, I am no longer pure. I am guilty.
The author has something to say:
Grateful to the heroes, may the deceased rest in peace, may heaven be without sickness and disaster
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